
— 



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IVilliam Pinkney 

Fifth Bishop of Maryland 



William Pinkney 



FIFTH BISHOP OF MARYLAND 



A Review by the Rev. Hall Harrlson, S.T.D., 

of Dr. Huttoris Recent Biography 

of the Bishop 



BALTIMORE 
CUSHINGS & CO. 

1891 



fft 



*&** 



M EXCHANGE 
FEB 1 5 1915 



PREFACE. 

In writing the following short sketch 
of Bishop Pink?iey, I was so take7i up 
with the Bishop's character and with 
the intrinsic excellence of Dr. Hut- 
ton's biography, that I omitted to say 
anything of the exter?ial appearance 
of the book and the manner in which 
it has been put before the public. 

The volume has been published, or, 
more correctly, printed, by Messrs. 
Gibson Brothers, of Washington, D. 
C, by the desire of Mr. Corcora?i, 
and at the expense of his estate. The 
venerable author, Dr. Hutton, is in 
no way responsible for the style in 
which it has been give?i to the world. 
His work was done when he completed 
the biography and placed it in the 
hands of Mr. Corcoran 's executors. 



6 PREFACE. 

He was very ill while his book was 
passing through the press, and was 
unable to read his own proof-sheets, 
or give those final touches and correc- 
tions which an author always desires 
to have an opportunity to make, Mr, 
Corcoran' s executors of course meant 
to do what was liberal and right, but 
they seem to have been very ill- 
advised. At all events, the result, 
which is all the public have to judge 
from, is very disappointing to the 
friends of Bishop Pinkney, The vol- 
ume by no means presents that hand- 
some exterior which its great merits 
demand, and which the generous 
munificence of Mr, Corcoran and his 
well-known devotion to the late bishop 
would lead the public to expect. The 
book is very correctly printed, but on 
a cheap, glazed paper, and some of 
the most interesting and valuable por- 
tions of it in a fine type that is very 
trying to the eyes. The shape is 



PREFACE. 7 

that of a very tall, thin 8vo, and 
its binding a?id general appearance 
recall the familiar "Congressional 
Document" or "Department Report" 
Perhaps Washington pri?iters, who 
live under the shadow of the Capitol, 
a?id surrounded by the Public Build- 
ings, may be pardoned for thinking 
that a " Congressional Document" is 
the ne plus ultra of beauty and desira- 
bility in the bookmaking art ; but 
this opinion is ?iot shared by the great 
publishers of En g la ndandA merica — 
by the Murrays, the Longmans, the 
Macmillans, the Harpers, and the 
Appletons, nor by the reading public 
generally. It is to be hoped, how- 
ever, that 7io reader who takes up 
Dr. Huttoris volume will allow him- 
self to be repelled from perusing a 
thoroughly good and interesting work 
by its unfortunate exterior. The lady 
will be found worthy of his attention, 
regard and courtship, though her face 



8 PREFACE. 

may not be beautiful and though her 
dress is far from becoming. 

There is also another matter that 
calls for some comment \ and at least 
a mild protest The book was at first 
freely given away to friends of Bishop 
Pinkney, which was quite in accord- 
ance with Mr. Cor cor art's character 
and his known friendship for the 
bishop. The Maryland Churchman 
of February ioth contained the fol- 
lowi?ig statement: "The book is ?iot 
for sale. It is printed at private 
expense, for distribution among the 
friends of Bishop Pinkney." 

Hardly had this announcement 
reached the public before there was a 
complete change of plan. The vestry 
or projectors of a little chapel at 
Hyattsville, Prince George's County, 
which they call the "Pinkney Memo- 
rial" prevailed on the executors of 
Mr. Corcoran to hand over to them 
the edition of Dr. Hutton^s work, or 



PREFACE. 9 

a certain ?iumber of copies, which they 
are to sell at the extravagant price of 
two dollars per copy, with the view of 
extorting mo?iey out of Bishop Pink- 
ney y s friends to build their chapel! 

A prohibitive tariff is thus placed 
upon the circulation of Dr. Htittoiis 
excelle7it book. No one is to have it 
unless he chooses to pay two dollars to 
St. Matthew's Chapel, Hyattsville. 
feel that a voice ought to be raised in 
protest against this sort of thing, with 
whomsoever it may have originated, 
and by whomsoever it may be approved. 
Itbeloyigs to the order of church fairs, 
lotteries, strawberry festivals and other 
extortioyis. The excellent people of 
the little village of Hyattsville have 
no right to say to Bishop Pi?ikney's 
friends, Yon sha'rtt have, and shcCrCt 
read the Life of Bishop Pinkney, un- 
less you first pay us two dollars for 
our chapel ! The very expedient to 
ivhich the vestry of Hyattsville are 



io PREFACE. 

resorting to raise a few paltry dollars, 
ought to bring to their mi?ids the 
impoverished condition of not a few 
Maryland parishes, so closely resem- 
bling their own. They must know that 
many ill-paid clergymen, after they 
have managed to feed and clothe them- 
selves and their families, have not two 
dollars to spare for the luxury of buy- 
ing books. And yet, what an inesti- 
mable and inspiring boon would such 
a work as the Life of Bishop Pinkney 
be to many a " country parson" who 
lives, not like George Herbert, at 
Bemerton, in beautiful Wiltshire, 
within a mile of Salisbury and its 
glorious Cathedral, but more like 
Goldsmith 's Traveller, 

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,' 1 '' 
Not "by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po," 

but amid very different scenery and 
associations. Far more probably will 
his lot be cast away from libraries, 



PREFACE, ii 

towns, mails and railways; among 
execrable roads over which a six- 
horse wagon can scarce drag its slow 
length along, and without the culti- 
vated surroundings and choice society 
wh ic h in fo rm er days made Sou th e rn 
Maryland, both on the Eastern and 
Western Shore, the garden of the 
State, full of beautiful and charm- 
ing homes. And now, poor man! he 
is not to be allowed to solace himself 
with The Life of Bishop Pinkney, 
unless he subscribes two dollars {not 
for the book, for that has been already 
paid for by Mr, Corcoran *s estate, 
"to be given away'' we were told), but 
to a little chapel about which he knows 
nothing, and in which he cannot be 
expected to take a very lively interest. 
And what sort of a memorial is it 
to be when completed ? It is like the 
late Rev. Dr. Hammond 's attempt to 
co?ivert the already existing little 
church of St. George's, in Baltimore, 



12 PREFACE. 

into a "memorial" to Bishop Whit- 
tingham ! St. George's Church needed 
repairs and enlargement, and its then 
rector, Dr. Hammond, thought it 
would be a good thing to raise the 
money out of Bishop Whittingham's 
friends by calling his little church a 
"memorial" to the bishop. A village 
thinks it needs a chapel, a?id, not hav- 
ing the wherewithal to build it, we 
are to have a cheap-looki?ig memorial 
to Bishop Pinkney. These methods 
are simply i?ijurious to the Church, 
and ought to be abandoned ; they cer- 
tainly will be, when their true char- 
acter as mere schemes for raising 
money is fully understood. 

The chapel at Hyatt sville will no 
doubt be just as good and just as bad 
as many other buildings of the kind, 
but, after all, what sort of things are 
these memorials? A little woode?i 
shanty is run up, not very different in 
its order of architecture from a very 



PREFACE. 13 

large dry- goods box, with a Gothic (/) 
roof, and capable, possibly, of holding 
some two hundred and fifty people, if 
that number of church-goers ca?i be 
found in the little hamlet ; a cross or 
turret is then placed on its top, a?id 
lo ! it is dig?iified with the name of 
the u Pi?ikney Memorial,'" or some 
other memorial. Now, a memorial 
window, in a fine church, such as may 
be seen in St. fohn's, Washington, to 
Bishop Pinkney, or in Grace Church, 
Baltimore, to Bishop Whitiingham, 
is a very different thing. Such a 
memorial {or a Font, or a Pulpit, or 
other ornament) may be obtained for 
a few hundred, or a few thousand, 
dollars, and may be seemly and appro- 
priate. But a church in memory of 
such a man as Bishop Pinkney should 
be a magnificent structure, costing not 
less than fifty or seventy five thousand 
dollars. Unless something grand and 
dignified is proposed {like the memo- 



H PREFACE. 

rial now in progress to the late Canon 
Liddon), it is far better to attempt 
nothi?ig at all. Dr. Huttoris record 
of the life of the good man is a much 
more suitable memorial than any little 
chapel. Of course, it is not intended 
for a moment to imply that the zealous 
Churchmen of Hyattsville were not 
animated by the best intentions in the 
world, and it must be ad?nitted that 
they only followed a very common 
custom ; but it is a custom that would 
be more honoured in the breach than 
in the observance. And the executors 
of Mr. Corcoran, without any doubt, 
thought they were doing an act of kind- 
ness, and, in some sort, were helping 
on some kind of a "memorial" to 
Bishop Pinkney. But none the less, 
this method of disposing of Dr. Hut- 
ton's work, or rather of hindering its 
extensive circulation, in order to raise 
a trifling sum of money, will not be 
generally approved in Maryland or 



PREFACE. 15 

elsewhere. It is unfair to the vener- 
able author, whose admirable book it 
needlessly handicaps, and, though done 
under the guise of charity, it does not 
seem in keeping either with Mr. Cor- 
coran' s munificence, or with the gene- 
rosity that ever characterized Mr. 
Corcoran 's dear and honoured friend, 
Bishop William Pinkney. 

fat. zjs ;<%/. 



DR. HUTTON'S LIFE OF 
BISHOP PINKNEY. 

The life of Bishop Pinkney was in 
general so quiet and uneventful that 
some of our readers may at first have 
a feeling of surprise that it should 
have been thought advisable to pub- 
lish any extended memoir of his 
character and career. Such persons, 
we predict, will entirely change their 
minds when they read the beautiful 
biography with which the Rev. Dr. 
Orlando Hutton has enriched our 
Church literature. It is a book not 
only of genuine interest to Mary- 
landers, among whom the late Bishop 
was so well known and so truly loved, 
but of real value to all Churchmen. 
As a biography, it deserves and will 
receive a high place among those 



18 WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

Lives of our Bishops which, if at all 
well and fairly done, form such useful 
contributions to American Church 
history. The volume consists of some 
three hundred and eighty-eight pages, 
8vo, and comes from the printing 
press of Gibson Brothers,Washington. 
It has been published, at Mr. Cor- 
coran^ desire, by the executors* of 
the philanthropist, who is known to 
have been Bishop Pinkney's intimate 
and devoted friend. 

The mere outline of the main facts 

of Pinkney's life may be condensed as 

follows from the pages of the memoir. 

Birth and William Pinkney, the fifth Bishop 

parentage. J ' r 

of Maryland, was born in Annapolis 
on the 17th of April, 1810, and was 

*The address of Mr. Corcoran's execu- 
tors (Messrs. Anthony Hyde and Charles 
M. Matthews) is 714, 15th Street, Washing- 
ton, D. C. Copies of the Life of Bishop 
Pinkney may be had from Mr. E. Allen 
Lycett, 9 E. Lexington Street, Baltimore. 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. ' 19 

baptized by the Rev. Mr. Judd, rec- 
tor of old St. Anne's Church. No 
American ever had a more honourable 
parentage and descent ; he was by 
birth and breeding, and education, and 
association, and family connections, 
every inch a gentleman. His Eng- 
lish ancestors came over to England 
from Normandy with William the 
Conqueror. His paternal grand- 
father, Jonathan Pinkney, settled in 
Annapolis before the Revolution, and 
as he sturdily adhered to the cause 
of the mother-country, all his prop- 
erty was confiscated by the Colonial 
government. His illustrious uncle, 
William Pinkney, the eloquent law- 
yer, jurist and Minister to the Court 
of St. James, and grandfather of the 
present Attorney-General of Mary- 
land, ex-Senator William Pinkney 
Whyte, must be passed over in this 
notice with a bare mention of his 
name. Bishop Pinkney's father, Mr. 



20 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

Ninian Pinkney, who held a high 
office of serious responsibility under 
the State government during the 
whole period of the War of 1812 and 
for some years after, was twice mar- 
ried. His first wife (Miss Mary Gass- 
away) died two years after her mar- 
riage, leaving no children. By his 
second wife, Amelia, the daughter of 
Richard Grason, Esq., of Talbot 
County, Md., and sister of Governor 
Wm. Grason, he had three children 
— Amelia, William (the future Bishop) 
and Ninian, a distinguished surgeon 
in the United States Navy.* When 

* Bishop Pinkney was devotedly attached 
to this brother, and he had a very high and, 
we believe, well-merited opinion of his sur- 
gical skill. Writing to Judge Huntington 
after his brother's death in 1877, he says : 
" He was, dear Judge, a large-hearted 
man ; as sympathetic as a child. His 
skill in surgery was not excelled, if it was 
equalled, by any one in this country. He has 
saved by discretion more limbs than most 



WIL L I AM P1NKNE Y. . 21 

Mr. Ninian Pinkney married this 
lady in 1806, she was a widow (Mrs. 
Amelia Grason Hobbs) with three 
children — two daughters and a son. 

The following quotation from Wil- 
liam Pinkney, then United States 
Minister at the Court of St. James, to 
his brother Ninian, in 1808, sheds 
incidentally a pleasing light upon the 
happy home where the future bishop 
passed his childhood : 

" I am half inclined to envy you the 
smooth, even tenor of your life. You are 
every way happy — at home and abroad. 
Nothing disturbs your tranquillity farther 

others have cut off. This is a terrible 
blow to me. We were only fourteen months 
asunder in our birth, and never severed 
afterwards farther than distance and duty 
severed us. I shall carry the shadow of this 
cross to my grave. He was in many re- 
spects a most remarkable man. But so it 
is. One is taken and another left. My 
heart is too full of sadness to sav more." 



22 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

than to show you the value of it. Beloved 
by your family, respected and esteemed 
everywhere, your official capacity acknowl- 
edged, your official exertions successful, 
what have you to desire ? " 

Dr. Hutton adds the following: 

(t Although there were two sets of chil- 
dren in the one family, yet all lived happily 
together and shared alike the fond care 
and impartial love of the husband and the 
wife. The bond that held them all to- 
gether was as strong and tender as that 
which could exist in any one household 
where all the children were the offspring 
of the same parents. There was no differ- 
ence in the domestic treatment, none in 
the provisions made for the comfort, train- 
ing and happiness of all. While in such 
cases much may be due to the father, very 
much more depends upon the wife and 
mother, from whom emanate the influences 
that sweeten, hallow and elevate all do- 
mestic life." (P. 3.) 

When William was fourteen years 
old, the children had the misfortune 
to lose their excellent father, and 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 23 

thus " there devolved upon the wid- 
owed mother the temporal care of 
the family and the grave responsi- 
bility of providing for the education 
of the children and their preparation 
for active and responsible work in 
life. In both respects she proved 
herself fully equal to the charge." 
(P. 16.) 

Bishop Pinkney's mother, like the Hismothe 
mother of Bishop Whittingham, was 
a lady of very remarkable intellectual 
gifts. She was full of imagination, 
wrote very good verses, was intensely 
religious, and with it all had one of 
God's most desirable blessings — ex- 
cellent common sense. The letters 
from her, quoted by Dr. Hutton, 
are beautiful compositions, and while 
charming in their simplicity and pure 
English, they have a sort of literary 
flavor and cultivation about them 
which one seldom sees in these mod- 
ern days of cheap postage, telegrams 



24 WIL LI AM PINKNE Y. 

and post cards. Moreover, they re- 
veal a very refined and spiritual na- 
ture. She died at the age of 80, in 
1858, when her son was in his forty- 
eighth year and was just beginning 
his prosperous career in Washington. 
Bishop Pinkney made a most beauti- 
ful allusion to her (which was not 
duly appreciated at the time*) in his 
last Convention address, in May, 
1883, just one month before his own 
lamented decease. The quotation 
will be found in Dr. Hutton's volume, 
pages 89, 90. 

rtt" a of C An- T ^ e " anc i ent cli Y " °f Annapolis, 

napoiis. i n the early days of Pinkney's youth, 

was noted as the seat and centre of a 

high degree of intellectual culture and 

social refinement, and the historical 

* Owing, perhaps, to the very modest 
and quiet manner in which the Bishop 
read the passage, as if he feared to in- 
trude upon his audience anything so per- 
sonal to himself and his family. 



WILLIAM PINKKE Y. 25 

associations connected with the quaint 
old town were, as they still are, of 
peculiar interest. Some of the Anglo- 
maniacs of the present day, the ob- 
sequious devotees of Mr. Ward McAl- 
lister (whose book on society as he 
found it, or rather, as he seems to 
mean, as he foiinded it, has been 
amusing many readers all over the 
country), will, of course, smile in- 
credulously. It is, however, none the 
less a fact that the old-fashioned New 
York of those days did not look 
down upon the historical town where 
Washington resigned his military 
commission, and where, under cir- 
cumstances of most imposing interest, 
which have aroused the admiration 
of the world, the great commander 
sheathed his unsullied sword and re- 
tired, like a veritable Cincinnatus, to 
domestic life at Mt. Vernon. Here 
it was that Pinkney was born and 
bred ; here he received the advan- 



26 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

tages of a good college education — 
an inestimable blessing where it is 
used and appreciated, but if not, if 
misused, as it often is, as a time of 
gaiety and extravagance, and even 
of vicious indulgence, then it is in- 
deed something worse than a sad 
waste of a parent's money. For, as 
Solomon truly asks, " Wherefore is 
there a price in the hand of a fool to 
get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart 
to it? " That is to say, Why waste 
your money in sending your son to 
college if he hasn't the sense to use 
his advantages? But Pinkney had 
the " heart to it," and he never lost 
his taste for the classics and for Eng- 
lish literature, nor that tone of mind 
and character which we commonly 
He graduates express by the word culture. He 

at St. John's r J 

College. graduated at old St. John s Col- 

lege at the early age of seventeen, 
receiving the much-prized honour of 
the " valedictory." There were six 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 27 

members of the class, one of whom 
was the late scholarly John Henry 
Alexander, of Baltimore, and another 
was William Harwood, of Annapolis, 
who alone, of his six classmates, still 
survives. " The best education," 
says Dr. Hutton, in one of the judi- 
cious remarks which he now and then 
intersperses in his book, " is that 
which, without undue stimulus or 
rivalry, fits a youth for afterwork and 
afterprogress in the sphere which he 
is to fill in the maturity of manhood." 
(P. 18.) In this sense William Pink- 
ney left college well equipped for the 
battle of life. He began the study of 
law, and under the influence of the 
followers of Whitefield and Wesley 
(pp. 20, 21) he became a Methodist. B A co j ne f. a 

Vir r Methodist. 

Filled with a desire to preach the 
Gospel, and feeling a distinct call to 
make that his life's work, he aban- 
doned the law, and repaired to 
Princeton Theological Seminary to 



28 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

study divinity. "At the close of the 
winter of 1833-4, succeeding his sec- 
ond year at Princeton, there was 
Tutor in Mr °ff ere d to him the situation of private 

&£>m tutor in the famil y of Mn J° hn 

Nevitt Steele, near Vienna, Dorches- 
ter County, on the Eastern Shore. 
This situation, while providing a suf- 
ficient support and giving him some 
occupation in teaching the three chil- 
dren of the family, would enable him 
to continue the prosecution of his 
theological studies. He accepted the 
position. It gave him a delightful 
home in one of the old families of 
Maryland, so noted for all the refined 
amenities of life. Fortunately for 
Mr. Pinkney, it was a Church family." 

(p. 27 .) 

Becomes a This was the turning-point in Pink- 

Churckman, ° r 

ney's career. Conversations with 
Mrs. Steele, a devout and intelligent 
Churchwoman, and certain books 
that fell in his way, caused him to 



WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 29 

return to the Church of his baptism. 
He became thoroughly convinced of 
the necessity of an apostolic ministry, 
and he regarded the order and disci- 
pline of the Anglican and Episcopal 
Church as most nearly approaching 
the scriptural and primitive pattern. 
These convictions he never gave up ; 
to the day of his death he was a firm, 
though moderate, u High Church- 
man," a lover and reader of Hooker 
and Andrewes and Waterland and 
Jeremy Taylor. All the steps in this 
great change in his religious, or per- 
haps we should, more correctly, say 
his theological, convictions are faith- 
fully narrated, in a very interesting 
chapter, by Dr. Hutton (pp. 24-29). 
We can only state the result — that 
he was finally ordained deacon by 
Bishop Stone in 1835 and priest in 
1836. His first parish was in Som- 
erset County, Md., but he very soon 
after became rector of four churches 



30 WIL L I AM PINKNE Y. 

in Prince George's County, on the 
Western Shore. Here he led a most 
self-denying - and arduous life. He was 
the missionary and almost the only 
preacher of the Gospel in an immense 
district, and his labours by day and 
by night, over wretched roads in a 
sparsely settled country, were quite 
equal in untiring zeal and efficiency 
to those of our Western bishops. All 
this is detailed in a style by no means 
dry or tedious, by his friend and 
biographer, the Rev. Dr. Hutton. 

His Marriage. j n ^g M ^ p inkney marrie d MisS 

Elizabeth Lloyd Lowndes, a grand- 
daughter of Edward Lloyd, who was 
at one time Territorial Governor of 
Maryland. " The disparity in age/' 
says Dr. Hutton (p. 34), " the lady 
being much older than himself, 
seemed not at all to have entered 
into his views as in any way calcu- 
lated to lessen the fulness and happi- 
ness of his wedded life. . . . For nearly 



WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 3 1 

forty years, till death severed the 
sacred tie that bound him to his 
beloved partner, it was a happy 
married life, unmarred by a single 
incident or instance to interrupt its 
peaceful serenity. Nothing could ex- 
ceed the delicacy and tenderness of 
his wife's devotion to the comfort and 
happiness of her husband. Bright, 
cheerful, of a peculiarly sweet dispo- 
sition, and possessed of manners most 
winning and refined, she threw an 
exquisite charm for her life long 
around his hearth of home." 

In a letter to his mother two weeks 
after his marriage, Mr. Pinkneysays: 
"We are in hopes of getting every- 
thing ready for housekeeping in the 
course of a few weeks. I feel very 
anxious about it, for cold weather is 
coming upon us very rapidly. ... A 
comfortable house, neat furniture, 
good wood, and a plain fare is the 
sum of my earthly desires." These 



32 WIL LI AM PINKNE Y. 

words truly describe Bishop Pink- 
ney's contented, unselfish, unambi- 
tious disposition, which was his char- 
acteristic throughout his life. 
Rector of the i n jgry he was called to the Church 

Church of the ^ ' 

Ascension. f the Ascension, in Washington, then 
a small and weak parish in compari- 
son with what Dr. Pinkney soon made 
it become. 

His labours in Washington were 
indefatigable, and he put out all his 
powers. He preached twice every 
Sunday, observed all the Church 
festivals (a thing then unusual in 
Maryland), had daily service through- 
out the year, and a short daily lecture 
in Lent, and kept up a flourishing Sun- 
day school, to which he gave much 
personal attention. Dr. Hutton gives 
many pleasing anecdotes that show 
Dr. Pinkney's fondness for children;* 

* One instance may be given. " He was 
singularly mindful of even little casual 
promises. On one of his visitations, be- 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 33 

childless though he was himself, he 
dearly loved them, and was much 
beloved by them in turn. Every case 
of serious illness in his large parish 
brought him to the bedside of his 
parishioner, and his holy ministra- 
tions and overflowing sympathy in 
the chamber of sickness and death 
were ever peculiarly acceptable and 
endearing. His bold and earnest 

coming interested in a little boy of the 
family where he was staying, for the Bishop 
was very fond of children and young per- 
sons, he said to the child that he would 
bring him a penknife the next time he came. 
More than a year elapsed, and all about it 
had been forgotten, even by the boy him- 
self, but when the Bishop came on his next 
visit, as soon as he greeted the child, he 
drew from his pocket the promised pen- 
knife." (P. 279.) His interest in educa- 
tion is shown by the medals and prizes 
which he gave annually at his own expense 
at St. James's College, and the Hannah 
More Academv and other schools. 



34 WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

preaching told upon the community ; 
but above and beyond any sermons, 
the man himself, his loving nature, 
his burning zeal, his sympathizing 
heart, his ever ready and open hand 
won everybody to him, and made 
the Church of the Ascension, or " Dr. 
Pinkney's Church," as people would 
persist in calling it, one of the most 
noted in all the District of Columbia. 
Here he lived and laboured , respected, 
honoured and beloved, until 1870, 
when he was elected Assistant Bishop 
of Maryland. Probably no rector in 
all the United States has ever done, 
single-handed, a larger or greater 
work — certainly none a more faithful 
and self-denying one. All went on 
smoothly and quietly until the event- 
ful Civil War cast its black clouds 
His leading over the land. Dr. Pinkney was at that 

position in the . . 

Diocese. time one 01 the leading presbyters of 

Maryland, always a delegate to the 
General Convention, always on the 



WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 35 

Standing Committee, always in per- 
fect harmony with his Bishop (the emi- 
nent Whittingham) on all theological 
and diocesan questions. Others of the 
clergy may have been more learned 
and noted in various departments, 
such as Wyatt, of St. Paul's; or Ker- 
foot and Trevett, of St. James's Col- 
lege, or Dr. Henry Mason, of Easton, 
the great patristic theologian ; or 
Atkinson, of St. Peter's and Grace 
Church, or Atkinson's brilliant suc- 
cessor, Coxe, the poet and belles- 
lettres scholar ; or Charles H. Hall, 
of the Epiphany ; but none w r ere more 
beloved or more truly esteemed 
among all the Maryland clergy than 
Dr. William Pinkney, of Washington. 

Then came the Civil War, with all His memorable 

. ,. i- • - . r ... controversy 

its heart-rending divisions in families wUA Bishop 

r . . • 1 • IVhittingham. 

and among mends, with its many 
cares and its perplexing questions of 
duty and allegiance. And then came, 
equally unsought and unexpected, 



36 WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 

Dr. Pinkney's memorable contro- 
versy with his beloved and honoured 
Bishop Whittingham. Of this noted 
contest, so very important in the 
lives of both Bishops, and so charac- 
teristic, in different ways, of each, not 
one word, strange to say, is to be 
found in Dr. Brand's valuable Life of 
Bishop Whittingham. It is not im- 
probable, however (though we know 
nothing positive on the subject), that 
Bishop Pinkney, with his characteris- 
tic modesty and self-suppression, may 
have requested Dr. Brand to omit all 
mention of him in his chapter (a 
very good chapter, on the whole) on 
Bishop Whittingham's political 
course, not wishing the matter to be 
prominently brought forward in his 
lifetime.* Dr. Hutton has very prop- 

* The writer has learned since this pas- 
sage was written, that Dr. Brand never saw 
this correspondence. He did not find it 
in the archives of the Episcopal Library 



WILLIAM PINKNEY. 37 

erly reprinted the whole of this long 
and memorable correspondence in 
an appendix to his biography. 

"It is due," he well says, in a note 
on page 112, " to all who were con- 
cerned in or affected by these issues, 
that the whole correspondence should 
be published. All history, as it bears 
upon acts and movements, both per- 
sonal and official, is valuable just in 
proportion as it fairly and f telly brings 
out the facts." 

It was a pity that the correspond- 
ence had to be spread before the 

when he was writing his book. The dis- 
appearance of these important letters, con- 
sidering Bishop Whittingham's known 
care of all his papers, is remarkable. It 
is not probable that the Bishop either lost 
or destroyed them ; it is far more likely 
that he separated them from other letters 
and put them carefully aside, and that they 
will be found some day among the MSS. 
treasures of the great library which he so 
generously bequeathed to his diocese. 



38 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

world, but there was no help for it; 
it had to be done. " 'Tis true, 'tis 
pity ; and pity 'tis, 'tis true." Truth 
before all things. This has been Dr. 
Hutton's motto, and anything else 
would have been strangely out of 
place in a biography of William 
Pinkney. There are, moreover, sev- 
eral obvious considerations which 
would justify Dr. Hutton, if any jus- 
tification were needed. Bishop Pink- 
ney never was what would be called 
a precise and systematic man of bus- 
iness. He was no martinet either as 
presbyter or bishop, and cared little 
(possibly too little) for the " red 
tape " in which so many others take 
delight, and he kept his letters and 
papers in no kind of order. (But it 
ought to be added in this connection 
that he never as bishop failed to 
keep an appointment unless the fa- 
cilities of travel were actually inter- 
rupted. Dr. Hutton calls attention 






WIL L I AM PINKNE Y. 39 

to his remarkable punctuality, page 
279.) But in this case Dr. Hutton 
relates that he found all this volumin- 
ous correspondence wrapped up and 
endorsed, and carefully preserved as 
an important though painful piece of 
history. Plainly Bishop Pinkney him- 
self attached special value to these let- 
ters, and his biographer had no choice 
in the matter if he was to do his work 
fully and fairly. And besides, noth- 
ing in all Bishop Pinkney's whole 
career is more honourable to his cour- 
age, to his invincible firmness, to his 
gentleness, and to his power, on cer- 
tain occasions, of clear, logical, con- 
vincing argument. It may be ad- 
mitted that Bishop Pinkney's sermo7is 
did not often give the impression of 
great logical power or of very com- 
manding ability. They were earnest, 
passionate appeals, such as one might 
have looked for from a Wesley or a 
Whitefield. They stirred the con- 



What the 
question was, 



40 WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 

science and moved the feelings more 
than they interested or excited the 
intellect But these letters to Bishop 
Whittingham are remarkable speci- 
mens of close reasoning expressed in 
the most lucid language.* His style, 
though vigorous and telling, and in 
some passages almost sharp, is yet 
never wanting in the respect due to 
his official superior, who, as it hap- 
pened, had long been one of the fore- 
most prelates of the Church, noted 
for his controversial skill and, we may 
add, for his occasional vehemence 
and power of sarcastic expression. 

The question raised was, in brief, 
as follows: In March, 1862, immedi- 
ately after the failure of a Confeder- 

* For another example of Bishop Pink- 
ney's excellent writing and clear reasoning 
see p. 316 of Dr. Hutton's book, and for 
some further account of the pamphlet there 
referred to, " Webster and Pinkney," see 
the Appendix to this sketch, Note A. 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 41 

ate attack upon Washington, Bishop 
Whittingham issued a circular to the 
clergy of the District of Columbia 
{not to all the clergy of the Diocese) 
requiring them to use a certain form 
of thanksgiving which he had com- 
posed for the success of the Federal 
arms and the preservation of Wash- 
ington from the " rebels." Dr. Pink- 
ney believed this requisition of the 
bishop to be uncanonical, and in his 
correspondence he proved it to be 
so.* Besides, he was a Southerner, 
and very many of his flock were of 
Southern sentiments also. He there- 
fore did not use the prayer. He was 
determined throughout the whole 
course of the war to keep his church 
free from " political taint," and to 
offer up no prayers in which all good 
men on both sides could not honestly 
join. In strict accordance with this 

*See Note B in the Appendix for some 
quotations from Dr. Pinkney on this subject. 



42 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

resolve, he did use the first excel- 
lent prayers which Bishop Whitting- 
ham issued in April, 1861, for these 
prayers in solemn terms simply im- 
plored the Lord of Hosts that ruleth 
all things, and sitteth on the throne 
judging right, to take the cause into 
his own hands and judge between those 
who were engaged in the miserable 
strife which then distracted our l#nd. 
More than this Dr. Pinkney could 
not conscientiously do, which is the 
same as saying that no power on 
earth could make him do more. Most 
of the Maryland clergy acted as he 
did in this matter. 

Bishop Whittingham, after several 
long letters, written in a style which 
was for him unusually contorted and 
obscure, finally presented Dr. Pink- 
ney to the Standing Committee for 
trial on the ground of having violated 
his ordination vow and broken the 
canons of the Church. The Standing 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 43 

Committee, however, ttnanimously 
(including the venerable Dr. Wyatt) 
refused to draw up a presentment, 
and thus the prosecution fell through. 
The Bishop, whose conscientiousness 
no man doubted, showed his vexation 
only too plainly, and was scarcely 
willing to accept the action of the 
Committee as ending the question or 
as binding his official conduct. Before Bishop Pink- 
another Sunday came round Dr. seized by the 
Pinkney's church was seized by the ernZenf™ 
Federal government as a hospital, 
and the congregation would have had 
no place to worship in but for the 
great generosity of Mr. Corcoran. 
To crown the whole of this unhappy 
dispute, thus needlessly thrust upon 
Dr. Pinkney, the Bishop refused, 
about nine months after, even to visit 
his church and administer confirma- 
tion there to more than a hundred 
candidates waiting to receive it at his 
hands. For further details the reader 



44 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

is referred to Dr. Hutton's volume 
and to the text of the correspondence 
itself. 
fhfs e corrfs- n For ourselves we can only say that 
pondence. j) r# Pi n kney appears to be impreg- 
nable in every position he assumed, 
and to have argued his important 
case with no less signal ability than 
with an amiable Christian temper. 
On Bishop Whittingham's side, too, 
the correspondence is most valuable 
as helping one to understand his 
character and do him the justice to 
which he is entitled. And for this 
reason we venture to think that it 
would have been well had this corres- 
pondence appeared in full long ago, 
when the Life of Bishop Whittingham 
was published. There is nothing like 
reading the way a man puts his own 
case. Bishop Whittingham's own let- 
ters reveal very clearly that there was 
some curious twist in his mind — 
always highly sensitive and conscien- 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 45 

tious — about all questions concerned 
with the " rebellion" (as he and his 
Northern friends would call it), and 
that when these problems arose he 
was simply incapable of seeing them 
in the light in which they appeared 
to ordinary minds. It reminds us 
of the remarkable — all but incredible 
— incident narrated in the Life of 
Kerfoot (page 311), where good 
Bishop Whittingham actually tried to 
get General Lew Wallace, then in 
command of Baltimore, to put his 
dear friends Kerfoot and Coit under 
close arrest, in order to prevent them 
from keeping their solemn engage- 
ment and sacred parole given to the 
Confederate General Early ! Such a 
man must and will be judged with due 
allowance for the excitement of the 
times and for the idiosyncrasies which 
temporarily warped his judgment, as 
well as that of some of his Northern 
friends and associates. And in fair- 



46 WILLIAM PINKNE Y, 

ness we should add, that of some of 
his Southern friends likewise; for 
extravagant things were said and done 
on both sides in those days of excite- 
ment and bitter feeling. This is always 
so in times of civil war : perhaps there 
was less of it in those days than in any 
other that history records. Certainly 
never before were the divisions of the 
past so soon forgotten and healed. 
Dr. Hutton's volume affords the most 
pleasing proof that both the bishop 
and Dr. Pinkney before long cordially 
resumed their former relations. On 
page 165 there is a glowing passage 
from Dr. Pinkney's private diary 
kept in England in 1869, in which he 
compares Whittingham with Bishop 
Wilberforce, by whose eloquence he 
had just been enchanted, and gives 
the preference to Whittingham. And 
when Pinkney was elected Assistant 
Bishop, nothing could exceed the 
warmth of Whittingham's welcome. 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 47 

Indeed, in one of his first letters to 
the new bishop, on a serious differ- 
ence about jurisdiction (soon settled, 
however), Bishop Whittingham spoke 
of their "long, unbroken friendship; 
of the close bonds of Christian love 
in which we have been so thoroughly 
drawn together; of the new tenderer 
relations in which we have now been 
placed by our partnership in the high 
vowsoftheApostolate." (Page 211.) 
This is a beautiful side of Bishop 
Whittingham's loving, impetuous 
nature.* 

*We cannot refrain from adding here 
the beautiful and touching letter written by 
Bishop Whittingham to Dr. Pinkney on the 
day after the latter's election as Assistant 
Bishop : — 

Friday Morning, 27 May, '70. Bishop Whit- 

"My very dear Brother: — In the 
momentous action of last evening two 
things call loudly for my especial gratitude 
to the Great Disposer of events. 

First, that He should have given me a 



tingham to 
Dr. Pinkney. 



48 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

?SaJeiy kney ' s The w h°l e occurrence, as recorded 
in Dr. Hutton's candid pages, is a 
striking proof of Dr. Pinkney's quiet 
bravery and inflexible adherence to 
duty, which never will and never 
ought to be forgotten. We must not 
recall from the waters of Lethe, where 
one would only too willingly bury 
all such unpleasant recollections, more 

brother and fellow-helper in whom I have 
entire and unlimited confidence as a man, 
a Christian, and a Churchman. Next, that 
He should have brought it about with such 
signal unanimity among the agents and 
such happy freedom from the blots and 
blemishes which sometimes mar our com- 
fort in similar transactions, even when the 
result is ground for thankfulness. 

I have, as I believe you know, scrupu- 
lously refrained from everything which 
could tend to make the action of our Con- 
vention other than the free and unbiassed 
expression of the wish of the Diocese. 

It is with just so much the more heart- 
felt satisfaction that I can accept that ac- 



WIL LI A M PJNKNE Y. 49 

of the history of these sad days than 
is absolutely necessary to understand 
Dr. Pinkney's position of grave re- 
sponsibility and serious danger. But 
a few words must needs be said. It 
was a time of fierce political excite- 
ment which none of the younger 
generation can begin to realize. 
" Southern sympathizers, " not only 
real, but even suspected, had to keep 

tion as the genuine choice of the Diocese, 
and welcome it as fallen upon one whom 
long personal esteem and close friendship 
have already bound me to in indissoluble 
bonds. 

I think I know your ends and aims in 
accepting the great trust to be committed, 
to be the same with which I have been 
poorly striving to hold it, and that a hearty 
unanimity of principles and objects will 
make it no hard thing for us to work in 
concert. 

Of this I pray you to be now and once for 
all assured, it shall, God helping me, be 
my unremitting study and endeavor to 



SO WIL LI AM PINKNE Y. 

very quiet and very dark. Dr. Pink- 
ney knew that peaceable, law-abid- 
ing citizens like George William 
Brown, Baltimore's brave mayor, S. 
Teackle Wallis, Wm. G. Harrison 
and many others had been arrested 

consult your views and your convenience 
in all matters falling to my disposal in our 
common work. 

May He whose voice speaks to us in 
such cases in the utterances of His people, 
be still more and more to you, my dear 
brother, in your new responsibilities and 
under the new and heavy burdens to be 
placed on you, your ever-present and all- 
sufficient stay and helper ! 

So from the bottom of his heart prays 
Your loving friend and brother, 

W. R. Whittingham." 

Rev. Dr. Pinkney. 

It is to be regretted that Dr. Hutton was 
not able to give us Dr. Pinkney's reply to 
this letter, which, we may be sure, was full 
of love and cordial appreciation of his 
bishop. But Bishop Pinkney rarely kept 
copies of his letters. 



WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 5 1 

at dead of night by order of General 
McClellan and hurried away to vari- 
ous Federal prisons, not for anything 
they had done, but because the Sec- 
retary of War and the Napoleonic 
" Little Mac" were afraid they were 
going to do something ! He knew 
that if he dropped an imprudent word 
which could be distorted into " disloy- 
alty," he would be sent to keep com- 
pany with his friends in Fort Warren. 
He was living in Washington, under 
the very eyes of the Federal officers, 
when many spies, too, were lurking 
about, a marked man, with his own 
bishop arrayed against him, and yet 
he never flinched for an instant. He 
yielded not an iota, but in quietness 
and in confidence pursued his thor- 
oughly consistent course, and fought 
the battle of Religious Freedom when 
she was sorely wounded in the very 
house of her friends and by those 
who should have been, like brave 



52 WILL I AM PINKNE Y. 

John Henry Hopkins, of Vermont, 
among her most ardent defenders. 
And there, in Dr. Hutton's Life of 
Bishop Pinkney, stands the record 
for all time — a record full of instruc- 
tion and of warning for all bishops 
and all presbyters what to do and what 
not\.o do in critical times of revolution 
and disturbance. 

We have left ourselves no space to 
deal with some of the most interest- 
ing chapters of the volume. Our 
readers must betake themselves to 
Dr. Hutton's pages for an account of 
Dr. Pinkney's enthusiastic election as 
Assistant Bishop (a thing unparal- 
leled in Maryland before or since, 
under its two-thirds rule); for the 
story of his extraordinary labours in 
Ritualistic episcopal work : for the troubles 

troubles. r r 

which the Ritualists gave first to 
Bishop Whittingham and still more 
to the new bishop. Ot all these deli- 
cate matters Dr. Hutton gives an ac- 



WIL L I A M PINKNE Y. 53 

count perfectly fair to both sides. We 
have long thought that the clergy of 
the "fancy" ritualistic churches in Bal- 
timore — both white and coloured — 
who indulged most freely in the 
" man-millinery " and other extrava- 
gances which Bishop Whittingham so 
hated,* never duly appreciated Bish- 
op Pinkney, and never did full justice 
to his generosity, his goodness, and 
the difficult position in which he was 
placed when he became Bishop of the 
Diocese, and fell heir to all the compli- 
cations which Bishop Whittingham's 
long-continued ill-health had pre- 
vented him from dealing with. If 
they are fair-minded men, as we be- 
lieve them to be, we think they will 
feel this to be so, when they go 
calmly over Dr. Hutton's truthful 

*See Appendix, Note C, On the attitude 
of Bishops Whittingham and Pinkney to- 
wards Ritualism. 



54 WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

narration — the " round, unvarnished 
tale " he so impartially delivers. 

Mr. Corcoran. Thefe j s ^ much J n tfae hQQ ^ ^ 

there ought to be, about the eminent 
philanthropist, Mr. W. W. Corcoran, 
and it is all deeply interesting.* In- 
deed, the countless admirers of Mr. 
Corcoran, no less than the friends of 
Bishop Pinkney, will be grateful to 
Dr. Hutton for all that he has written 
in this volume under this head. The 
close friendship between Mr. Cor- 

*Dr. Hutton's book is appropriately in- 
scribed to Mr. Corcoran's memory in the 
following terms, at once strictly true and 
gracefully expressed : 

i: To the memory of William W. Cor- 
coran, Distinguished no less by his 
abounding general philanthropy Than by 
his Appreciative and affectionate devotion 
to the Person and character of the Subject 
of these pages, Mainly due for their prepa- 
ration to*'his solicitous Interest and gen- 
erous encouragement, They are respect- 
fully dedicated by the Author." 



WIL L I A M PINKNE V. 55 

coran and Bishop Pinkney was a 
beautiful thing — mutual love and re- 
spect never for a moment interrupted. 
And nobly generous as Mr. Corcoran 
was with his large means, we cannot 
truly say that he surpassed Bishop 
Pinkney himself, whose constant 
charities out of his small salary of 
$4000, as partially disclosed by his 
biographer, are simply amazing. 
Think of the kind Bishop, when the Bishop Pink- 
quarterly instalments of his salary 'osityf'" 
came in, sitting down and sending 
off cheque after cheque to some of 
his clergy whom he knew to be mis- 
erably paid and in sorer need than 
himself! Think of his paying to the 
Church of the Ascension, out of his 
salary as bishop (for he allowed all 
the salary paid by the vestry to go 
to his associate rector), $900 per an- 
num for several years, and then in 
addition offering $2000 of bank stock, 
11 all he owned of property " (p. 251), 



56 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

to help to extinguish the immense 
debt which came so near crushing his 
beloved church and congregation ! 
moJlndZ'd- Bi shop Pinkney, as is well known, 
den death. &\z& very suddenly in the early 
morning of July 4th, 1883, while on a 
visitation to Sherwood Church, Cock- 
eysville, Md., having preached the 
very night before a fervent sermon 
on the blessedness of heaven from 
the great text (Heb. xii. 22) : " But ye 
are come unto Mount Sion, and unto 
the city of the living God, the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innu- 
merable company of angels," etc. 

After this earnest and touching ser- 
mon (which has been published), " he 
fell asleep." The pathetic close of 
his truly noble life is lovingly told by 
his biographer with much interest- 
ing detail. 

We must now conclude this short 
sketch, most of which is derived 
from the biography itself, which we 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 57 

have read with absorbing interest, by 
giving the following beautiful quota- 
tion from Dr. Hutton's graceful pen : 
" We cannot choose the moment, 
the place, the surroundings of our 
departure hence. No death is sud- 
den when it finds the watching ser- 
vant of the Lord waiting for the Mas- 
ter's summons; no death is untimely 
when it comes in the fulness of years 
of holy service for Christ and His 
Church; and no death can be deso- 
late when the Spirit of the Lord is 
near to bear up and cheer the depart- 
ing soul to its promised and blessed 
rest. Bishop Pinkney died as doubt- 
less he would have preferred to die, 
not in the decay of mental and physi- 
cal power and under prolonged suf- 
fering, unfitting him for active duty, 
but rather while actually engaged in 
those sacred offices which, for more 
than forty years in the priesthood 
and thirteen in the episcopate, he 



58 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

had earnestly sought to fill in all min- 
istering love and duty ; his mind as 
clear and strong at seventy-three as 
it had ever been, his heart as warm 
and expansive in Christian sympathy 
as in the freshness of youth, and his 
bodily vigor, though abated, yet not 
seriously impaired.'' (Page 343.) 

Felix opportunitate mortis I is the 

exclamation that rises involuntarily 

to the lips on reading such words as 

The Rev. Dr. these. The venerable author, Dr. 

Button. 

Hutton, is now in his seventy-fifth 
year, and while his book was in press 
he was stricken a few months ago 
with a very serious illness, which has 
entirely disabled him from parochial 
work. We were glad to hear recently 
that he was somewhat improved in 
health, though, at his advanced age, 
with no hope of return to his former 
active ministry. We rejoice that God 
has spared him to witness the com- 
pletion and publication of this me- 



WIL L I AM PINKNE Y. 59 

moir. He has crowned his long la- 
bours of some fifty-three years of min- 
isterial service in Maryland by giving 
us in his old age a very valuable 
biography. He has executed a diffi- 
cult and delicate task with great judg- 
ment and perfect taste, and, in short, 
in such a manner as to lay not only 
his own Diocese, but the Church at 
large, under lasting obligations to his 
painstaking industry. His name will 
go down associated, as it well de- 
serves to be, with that of the excel- 
lent Bishop, the faithful pastor and 
genial friend, whose life and char- 
acter he has so lovingly and accu- 
rately delineated. 



APPENDIX. 

Note A. 

On Bishop Pinkney's Pamphlet, 
" Webster and Pinkney." 

Daniel Web- In 1 877 Mr. Peter Harvey published 

ster's alleged ' . ^ . . 

encounter witk his u Reminiscences of Daniel Web- 

William Pink- . . 

ney. ster, a garrulous and inaccurate 

book, but full of entertaining anec- 
dotes. In this work (pp. 121-123) 
he professes to give Webster's 
account, in Webster's own words, of 
a remarkable encounter with William 
Pinkney, when both were engaged 
before the Supreme Court, during 
Webster's youth, in the days of Chief 
Justice Marshall. The anecdote is 
full of boastful self-glorification of 
Webster himself, and represents 
Pinkney as behaving like a poltroon 
and a coward, quailing before Web- 
ster's u dark and firm eyes." This 



WIL LI AM PINK 1ST E V. 61 

attack upon a great rival, long dead 
and therefore unable to defend him- 
self, is very unlike the great Webster 
who said so nobly in his reply to 
Hayne, " I thank God that, if I am 
gifted with little of the spirit which 
is able to raise mortals to the skies, I 
have yet none, as I trust, of that other 
spirit which would drag angels down." 
Bishop Pinkney was so 4 ' pained and 
astonished " when he came upon this 
unexpected slander upon his illus- 
trious kinsman, that he investigated the 
whole story, and showed from a com- 
parison of dates, and from misstate- 
ments which Mr. Harvey attributes 
to Webster, that the thing was 
wholly improbable — in fact, could not 
have occurred. Yet, while he says 
plainly that he cannot believe that 
Webster ever really said what is 
imputed to him, the Bishop takes care 
to make no charge that Mr. Harvey 
,f made it up." Mr. Harvey, in 



62 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

writing his Reminiscences in his old 
age, had either unintentionally mis- 
represented what Webster said, or 
had mistaken the name ; the story, if 
true at all, could not have been about 
Pinkney. It is a masterly piece of 
reasoning, and as amiable as cogent. 
Bishop Pinkney almost accomplishes 
the impossible problem of " proving 
a negative." At any rate he proves 
that Mr. Harvey's narrative is wholly 
incredible ; Daniel Webster never 
could have talked such idle, vain- 
glorious stuff. The present writer 
falling in with it by chance, was so 
impressed with its power, and its 
interest, too, on account of the great 
historical characters with whom it 
deals, that he wrote to Bishop Pink- 
ney, begging the favour of a copy. 
When it came, he was not a little 
pleased to learn from the Bishop that 
Mr. Charles the pamphlet had made the same im- 

O Conor's . _ _,- , s~^,/~> 

opinion. pression upon Mr. Charles O Conor, 



WIL L I AM PINKNE Y. 63 

the well-known lawyer of New York, 
and had led to a very pleasant inter- 
change of letters, followed by an 
intimate acquaintance (see Dr. Hut- 
ton's Life, p. 316). Mr. O'Conor 
considered this production of Bishop 
Pinkney an unanswerable argument. 
The facts are marshalled in such lucid 
order, the inferences are drawn so 
justly, the tone and temper are so 
mild and calm, that the conclusion is 
irresistible that Mr. Harvey's memory 
was grievously at fault ; and the story 
is shown to be (though Mr. Harvey 
did not see it) as derogatory to 
Daniel Webster's greatness as it was 
unjustly disparaging to William Pink- 
ney's well-established reputation and 
character. — A third perusal of this 
pamphlet, within a few days, has 
fully confirmed the impression made 
by the first reading of it. 



64 WIL LI AM P1NKNE V. 



Note B. 

The canon under which Bishop 
Whittingham professed to be acting 
says (Digest, Title I, Can. 15, §xiv) : 
" The bishop of each diocese may 
compose forms of prayer or thanks- 
giving, as the case may require, for 
extraordinary occasions, and transmit 
them to each clergyman within his 
diocese, whose duty it shall be to use 
such forms in his church on such 
occasions." But Bishop Whittingham 
did not transmit his thanksgiving " to 
each clergyman within his diocese/' 
but only to a selected few, to wit: 
those who resided in the District of 
Columbia. Dr. Pinkney maintained 
that the bishop was not keeping to the 
requirements of the very canon which 
he blamed him (Dr. Pinkney) for 
breaking. Consequently, no clergy- 
man of the District could be bound 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 65 

to obey under that canon. Writing ZiSa^L 
to his intimate friend, Judge S. H. H.Huntington 
Huntington, of Connecticut, Dr. Pink- 
ney says, under date March 25, 1862, 
six months before his correspondence 
with Bishop Whittingham : " My own 
mind was clear. .. . I felt it due to the 
position I held, to consult two lawyers, 
one in Baltimore and one in Wash- 
ington, because it was proper I should 
act calmly, and with the best legal 
aid at my command. I made the 
point myself, first to Mr. Stone and 
then to a gentleman of the bar in Bal- 
timore; and both of them sustained 
me in my construction of the law, and 
Mr. Carlisle sent me word that he 
considered it impregnable. I read 
the canon and then asked myself the 
question, Whose duty is it to read the 
prayer put forth by the bishop under 
the canon ? Clearly the duty of each 
clergyman, and that by the very terms 
of the canon. To whom is it to be 



66 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

transmitted ? As clearly to each 
clergyman of the diocese. The power 
to transmit is derived from the canon, 
and the canon directs that it shall be 
transmitted to each clergyman in the 
diocese. The bishop may compose 
and transmit or not. But the may 
refers solely to the act of composing 
and transmitting. It is the bishop's 
choice to determine the occasion as 
an extraordinary occasion. Exercis- 
ing the right of choice, his discretion 
ends ; and he must be guided by the 
canon in all that he does afterwards. If 
he transmits it otherwise than as the 
canon directs, he becomes himself a 
violator of the very law he would 
bind on others. In one word, the 
canon was framed for diocesan 
prayers. ... I regret exceedingly 
the position I am compelled to oc- 
cupy. I shall patiently hold my 
peace until I am forced to speak out ; 
and then I shall make a clean breast 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 67 

of it, and review the past and present 
of the bishop's course. ... I have 
never disobeyed law knowingly, and 
hope I never shall. But my rights I 
will and must defend at all hazards. 
I have eschewed from principle every- 
thing but the Gospel in my ministra- 
tions. I have laboured imperfectly but 
sincerely to do my duty by all. If I 
am to be sacrificed by the strong arm 
of pow r er ; so be it. I shall not swerve 
an inch from what I believe to be my 
duty ; and to God I leave the rest." . . . 
Again, to the same friend, on April 
7, 1862: ... "I acted on my own 
honest convictions of duty, and while 
I have no overbearing conceit of the 
wisdom of the course I pursued, I 
was never more thoroughly satisfied 
that I was right. On the interpreta- 
tion of the canon and the uncanonical 
act of the bishop, notwithstanding 
you think it susceptible of doubt, I 
have the satisfaction of knowing that 



68 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

Dr.Pinkney \ a m sustained not only by the three 

sustained by J J 

the best law first lawyers of Washington, one of 
whom is the strongest of Union men, 
but by Alexander of Baltimore, and 
Dr. Coxe [then rector of Grace 
Church, Baltimore], and, I believe, 
the whole Standing Committee, not, 
however, as a Standing Committee, 
for the case was not presented to 
them. So far I stand rectus in curia. 
Law is law, and when summoned to 
obey it, I cannot consent to its infrac- 
tion. But if the prayer had been 
diocesan [i. e. had it been transmitted 
to each clergyman of the diocese, as 
the canon directs], I still think the 
power is wanting to the Bishop to put 
forth such a prayer, and that on two 
grounds, both of which are supported 
by high legal authority, one of them, 

And by the at least, entertained by Dr. Coxe." . . . 

Rev. Dr. Coxe. ' J 

(Pp. 108, 109, I IO.) 



WILLI A M PINKNE Y. 69 

Note C. 

On the attitude of Bishops 

Whittingham and Pinkney 

towards Ritualism. 

What is said on p. 53 will not be 
denied by any who really knew 
Bishop Whittingham 's sentiments. 
Dr. Brand's Life of Whittingham 
has settled this question, which ought 
never to have been raised in Mary- 
land, where his episcopate extended 
through a period of forty years. The 
reader's attention is especially called 
to two letters of Bishop Whitting- 
ham in VOl. 2, DD. 117, Il8. They Letters to Rev. 

are addressed to the Kev. L. M. imSbj. 
Parkman, at that time (1867) rector 
of St. Andrew's Church, Baltimore. 
This gentleman, if he desires the 
honour, is entitled to be called the 
"Father of Ritualism" in the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church. Bishop Whit- 



70 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

tingham was much attached to him 
and had a high respect for his unusual 
learning in matters of ritual, ancient 
Liturgies, etc. The following ex- 
tracts are interesting : 

" My dear Parkman, — I heard to- 
day, in the course of an informal 
private conversation, that you are 
using divers colours — red, green, etc. 
— in articles of your vesture in public 
worship, the tinkling of a bell in the 
course of your service, and perhaps 
other things until now unknown in 
the usages of worship in this Diocese. 
... I verily believe them to be viola- 
tions of the ordination vow, and am 
determined, so far as it shall please 
God to give me ability, to hinder 
their introduction within that portion 
of the Church for the conduct of 
which in His Providence He has 
made me answerable. But I loathe 
the exercise of authority in such a 
case, and dread as exquisite torment 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 7 1 

the appeal to law. Therefore I have 
recourse to the stronger and better 
law of love," etc. Again, ibid. p. 118, 
Bp. W. to Rev. C. M. Parkman:— 
. . . "With the single exception of 
your mention of 'a chasuble,' I find 
nothing in your report of your 
1 usages' which seems to me to admit 
question of it being within the liberty 
of an American presbyter — although 
I do not myself admit the correctness 
of quoting ' Sarum use ' here, where 
' Sarum use ' never had show of rule. 
But 'a chasuble' is a vestment un- 
known to the American Church, and 
its use is not in conformity with the 
worship of this Church — i. e. not 
the Church of England — far less the 
Church of Rome — not even the 
Church Catholic — but this branch 
of the Church of Christ, whether it 
be well appointed for its work or ill- 
appointed, well-governed or ill-gov- 
erned — clad in the beauty of holiness 



7 2 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

or in unseemly rags." The question 
is not as to the soundness of Bishop 
Whittingham's opinions in regard to 
ritualistic innovations, but what those 
fna°te^went y °P m i° ns really were. It was natural 
™£h^ sh ? p that Bishop Pinkney's tone of thought 

Whittingham* r j & 

in these matters should be much in- 
fluenced by the Diocesan with whom 
he had been so intimate since 1840, 
and, though there is no record of his 
ever expressing himself so strongly 
against ritualism as Bishop Whit- 
tingham many times did, he agreed 
in the main with his bishop. The 
point is important, because after 
Bishop Whittingham's death in 1879, 
it became the fashion in certain quar- 
ters to represent Bishop Pinkney as 
an entirely different sort of Church- 
man from Bishop Whittingham, and 
actually to claim the latter bishop as 
an approver and supporter of the 
ritualism he had so stoutly opposed ! 
The reader of Dr. Brand's book, and 



WILLI A M PINKNE Y. 7 3 

of Dr. Hutton's Life of Bishop Pink- 
ney has now ample materials for 
forming a correct judgment upon this 
question. (Compare also Life of 
Bishop Kerfoot, vol. 2, p. 516, and 
pp. 496-498.) 

Dr. Brand, with the candour which Later utter- 

... ... « , . ances of Bishop 

is his characteristic, has told quite whittingham 

, r 1 • .on the subject. 

enough in many pages of his work 
to reveal very clearly Bishop Whit- 
tingham's real animus, and his in- 
vincible aversion to ritualistic innova- 
tions and extravagancies, and above 
all his unceasing hostility to any 
attempt, open or covert, to introduce 
distinctly Roman doctrine (a subject 
in which he was profoundly versed) 
into our branch of the Church. It 
cannot indeed be fairly maintained 
that Bishop Whittingham was always 
consistent. Like other bishops, he 
had to yield in regard to vestments 
and other like usages, and he was 
not able wholly to resist the ritualism 






74 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

which in the ten years since his death 
has made such rapid strides, not so 
much in Maryland as in Philadelphia 
and New York and Chicago, and many 
of the small Western dioceses — large 
enough in territory, but small in the 
number of clergy and communicants. 
Besides, under the present law of 
our Church (which happily is not en- 
cumbered with an ambiguous and 
unintelligible " ornaments rubric ") a 
bishop has really no power to inter- 
fere in the matter of vestments, ex- 
cept in the way of fatherly advice. 
That the Bishop knew and admitted 
this, is made plain by what Dr. Brand 
tells us of him in the middle of p. 
335> vol. 2. Bishop Whittingham 
was as powerless to prevent the use 
of a "chasuble," as he had been in 
the earlier days of his episcopate to 
compel the use of a surplice. Forty 
or fifty years ago, when Bishop 
Whittingham first came to Maryland, 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 7 5 

the officiating clergyman, in many 
churches, wore, not only in preach- 
ing, but during the entire service, the 
Genevan black gown. In Frederick, 
for example, a surplice would, in 
those days, have created as much 
consternation as a cardinal's red hat. 
A dilapidated piece of linen used to 
hang in the vestry, which tradition 
said had once been a surplice and 
had once, in times gone by, been ac- 
tually worn. Better customs gradu- 
ally came to prevail, but it took time 
to bring the change about. Along 
with these better customs other uses 
have been introduced, some of which 
are extravagant and offend against 
good taste (so at least Bishop Whit- 
tingham thought). Though these 
things are doubtless meant for a good 
purpose, and are considered highly 
beautiful and edifying by those who 
indulge in them, they do not really, 
in the long run, conduce to reverence, 



76 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

but rather belittle and bedizen* the 
dignified service and ceremonial of 
the Prayer Book. It is to be hoped 
that many of these uses will pass 
away as public opinion becomes more 
enlightened and really good taste 
more prevalent. Kindly discussion, 
free expression of opinion, and the 
presentation of the convictions of 
such men as Whittingham and Pink- 
ney (with whom may be associated 
our venerated Presiding Bishop, John 
Williams, of Connecticut, whose views 
and principles are well known to the 
Church at large), ought to help to 
produce this result.f Questions of 

* This is another of Bishop Whitting- 
ham's expressive words in reference to 
forms of ritualism that he disliked. See 
Brandy vol. ii, p. 334, last line. 
Judgment of i The recent Judgment of the Arch- 
Benson, bishop of Canterbury in the famous case 

of " Read and others vs. the Bishop of Lin- 
coln " — which has been so justly admired 
for its learning and breadth of view — to- 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 7 7 

erroneous doctrine are more serious, 
and stand upon a different footing. 

Who that remembers Bishop 
Whittingham's demeanour, so im- 
pressive, so full of rapt devotion, yet 
so unaffected and simple — his whole 
bearing, voice, gesture, countenance, 
being, so to say, transfigured by the 

gether with the Pastoral Letter of the 
Archbishop, ought, one would think, to be 
ultimately of great service both in moder- 
ating the extravagancies of those who like 
ritualism, and in bringing about a calm 
and reasonable tone of thought among 
those who feel bound to try to prevent its 
extension. 

In his Pastoral, his Grace welcomes the 
"universal, unimpeached advance in the 
devout beauty of public worship which 
has been made in the last half-century by 
the moderate and earnest clergy in happy 
conjunction with the laity." In his Judg- 
ment, speaking with all the authority which 
belongs to the court, consisting of himself 
as Primate with five Episcopal Assessors, 
the Archbishop pronounces that some of 



7 8 WILLI A M PINKNE Y. 

feeling that possessed and inspired 
him — can imagine him, instead of 
" lifting up his heart," concentrating 
his mind upon the intricate and be- 
wildering petty details of ritualistic 
ceremonialism as prescribed in their 
" Directoriums " and " Rituals for the 
Altar " and practised in some of their 

these disputed matters — notably the " east- 
ward position," about which so much has 
been written — have no significance at all. 
They are not worth contending for ; still 
less are they worth righting against. The 
eastward position is not a " sacrificial po- 
sition," as some ritualists have insisted. 
u By whomsoever put forward, the state- 
ment is without foundation." "No sig- 
nificance can be attached to a form, act, or 
usage unless that significance is in accord- 
ance with the regular and established 
meaning of language or symbol, whether 
liturgical or other." The eastward posi- 
tion is now, as it always has been in the 
Anglican Church, a mere matter of con- 
venience and propriety. The Archbishop 
quotes the well-known answer of the 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 79 

churches ? To him it would have 
seemed like " seething a kid in its 
mother's milk," — destroying true rev- 
erence by the very means used to 
instil and nourish it. And when we 
add that in some of these churches 
the ceremonial is, and is meant to be, 
a tolerably correct imitation of the 

Bishops in 1661 to the Puritan divines at 
the Savoy Conference: "The minister's 
turning to the people is not most conve- 
nient throughout the whole ministration. 
When he speaks to them, as in Lessons, 
Absolution, and Benedictions, it is conve- 
nient that he turn to them. When he 
speaks for them to God, it is fit that they 
should all [i. e. both minister and people] 
turn another way, as the ancient Church 
ever did." This is essentially the ground 
of the late Dean Stanley, who urged many 
years ago, with such force, in his inimitable 
way, the " absolute triviality of these ques- 
tions about vesture and postures when 
compared with matters of serious religion." 
See Christian Institutions, 3rd London 
edit., pp. 167, 170-173. 



8 o WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

Roman Mass, in lights, vestments, 
incense, wafers, genuflexions, cross- 
ings, bowings, osculations, prostra- 
tions, elevation and adoration of the 
Host, etc., the idea of Bishop Whit- 
tingham's approving or even endur- 
ing such a service is one that those 
who knew him cannot for a moment 
entertain. 

The quotations that have been 
given from Bishop Whittingham's 
letters to the Rev. Mr. Parkman show 
plainly enough his feelings and atti- 
tude in 1867, at the beginning of the 
ritualistic movement, and upon its 
first introduction into his diocese. On 
P- 335 °f Dr. Brand's second vol- 
ume will be found an incident and 
another letter written in 1877, which 
prove that the Bishop's animus — his 
tone of thought and feeling — re- 
mained much the same in the latest 
years of his life. Being in Boston in 
1877, in attendance upon the General 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 8 1 

Convention, he accompanied his dear Bishop whit- 

r • i i-\ r*i 1 i t^ tingham in Bos- 

fnend, Dr. Shattuck, to what Dr. ton in 1877. 
Brand calls "a church of the Ad- 
vanced." The Bishop, by request, 
consented to take his place in the 
chancel. It was reported at the time 
(though Dr. Brand does not mention 
this) that he was so much distressed 
by the " novelties that disturbed his 
peace "* — by the strange things that 
the young priests and acolytes were 
performing before his eyes — as to be 
unable to contain himself. He then 
and there spoke out, and in the very 
spirit of old Isaiah uttered his solemn 
condemnation. If he did not actually 
say, " Incense is an abomination to 
me ; your new moons and appointed 

* Perhaps it may be necessary to explain 
to those whose memory does not go back 
some forty years and more, that these 
words allude to some once celebrated 
pamphlets published under that title by 
Bishop John Henry Hopkins. 



8 2 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

feasts my soul hateth," he at least left 
no doubt that he considered the per- 
formance at which he had been un- 
willingly present, an unauthorized 
and inexcusable travesty of the 
Prayer-Book service which he had 
known and loved from childhood. 
Returning to his temporary home at 
Dr. Shattuck's, he wrote as follows to 
his daughter— one of his latest utter- 
ances on the subject : — 
Bishop whit- « j am ; n no condition for writing, 

ting nam to his a ' 

daughter, in being somewhat shattered by the long 
service this morning, with the (for 
me) long walk to and from it, and 
most of all, by the highly disagreeable 
impression made and left by the nature 
of the service. It was irregular from 
one end to the other. To my taste 
disgusting ; in my judgment very 
injudiciously sensuous, with unsuc- 
cessful effort to attain ornate gran- 
deur ; and for my spiritual experience 
harassing and unsatisfactory. In all 



WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 83 

my life I have never felt myself so 
much a stranger in my Father's house , 
nor so unable to put myself into reli- 
gious sympathy with my fellow-wor- 
shippers. I do not intend again to 
expose myself to so much suffering-." 

Such was the impression of a full- 
blown ritualistic service (or " High 
Mass," as they call it in St. Ignatius's 
Church, New York) upon the peculi- 
arly reverent mind of Bishop Whit- 
tingham ! 

Bishop Pinkney's feeling was much 
the same. But from natural tem- 
perament he was far more easy-going 
than Bishop Whittingham : he abso- 
lutely abhorred entrance to a con- 
troversy, though, being in, he bore it 
so that the opposer had need to 
beware of him. No clergyman who 
did not obtrude his extravagancies or 
violations of law upon Bishop Pink- 
ney was likely to be disturbed. His 
rule was gentle, his manners courte- 



84 WILLIAM PINKNE Y. 

ous and considerate, and yet, when 
principle and the rights of conscience 
were involved, he could be firm 
enough, as has been shown, both as 
presbyter and as bishop. 



CORRIGENDUM. 

The writer takes this opportunity of cor- 
recting a mistake into which the venerable 
Dr. Hutton has fallen, in a note on p. 202 
of his Life of Bishop Pinkney. In that 
note Dr. Hutton says: "The writer re- 
gretted not to find in the very interesting 
Life of Bishop Kerfoot, by the Rev. Dr. 
Hall Harrison, any notice of Bishop Ker- 
foot's presence at the consecration of Dr. 
Pinkney, and of the sermon preached by 
him on that occasion ; yet he was not alto- 
gether unprepared for such omission upon 
reading the pamphlet which Dr. Harrison 
published soon after the election of the 
present Bishop of Maryland." 

What the excellent and respected author 
meant to imply by this note is a riddle 
which it would require an CEdipus to solve. 



WILLIAM PINKNEY. 85 

The sermon " at the consecration of Bish- 
op Pinkney," however, is mentioned on p. 
712 of the Life of Bishop Kerfoot ; and 
this surely implies the presence of Bishop 
Kerfoot in person at the time, for it has 
never been claimed by even the highest 
advocates of episcopal powers that a bish- 
op could preach a sermon without being 
present on the occasion when it was de- 
livered ! And as to not quoting the long 
and beautiful peroration of some two or 
three pages, it was omitted simply from 
want of room, as many other interesting 
topics were unavoidably passed by. The 
truth is, the writer found his book growing 
too large, and he almost made it a rule not 
to encumber the work with any quotations 
from Bishop Kerfoot's sermons, charges 
and addresses, which, being already in 
print, were otherwise accessible. 



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